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Friday, 12 October 2018

‘MeToo’: Matriarchal values enter the mainstream (Pakistan Observer)

Geopolitical Notes From India

M D Nalapat

THE surname of this columnist is his mother’s family name, which in
turn was her mother’s, and so on for several centuries. Both in the
northeast of India as well as in parts of Kerala and Karnataka states,
select communities follow the matriarchal code. In some cases, only the
women inherit property, the men having to remain content with education,
mainly for war (in the case of the Nayar community). Of course, looking
after the children is the responsibility of the woman and not the man !
If ever a survey were to get conducted, it is likely to find that
matriarchal families have a better quality of life than those following
patriarchy. Women, after all, have far more sensitive antennae where the
family is concerned, and it is correctly said that the more a girl gets
educated, the better will she make the condition of her family. There
are still parts of India where a girl child is left without any but a
rudimentary education, on the principle (if such it could be called)
that her sole function is to be the housewife.
It is no coincidence that such places are those where poverty and poor
living conditions is most visible, while places where women are treated
as the equals of men are much more prosperous and orderly. In a truly
matriarchal culture, a “MeToo” movement would almost be non-existent,
for the reason that in such communities, the initiative for beginning
and developing a relationship with the opposite sex rests with the
female and not the male. The “MeToo” movement (in which women are outing
and shaming males who took advantage of them in ways other than by
mutual consent) has been fuelled by the crude manner in which more than a
few males have sought to inflict their company and worse on unwilling
women.
Almost by the day, women who were once intimidated and hounded by
predatory males are using social media to reveal what took place. Some
such reports may be fictitious and designed to fulfil agendas that
include vendetta, but the overwhelming majority are clearly genuine, and
even the media world has not been spared. It is a sign of the progress –
admittedly far from enough – that India has made in the
conscientization of society against the exploration of women that most
of those forced out of the closet by the revelations of their victims
have lost their jobs or are on the path to doing so. Several film heroes
have morphed in the public imagination to villains, while journalists
once noted for being social crusaders are now being described as
shameless predators. It seems clear from the torrent of revelations that
is spilling out daily that the “casting couch” ( or the demand for
physical intimacy as a condition for advancing a career) is not
restricted to Bollywood but is present in several other professions as
well, including politics and the media.
Unlike in countries such as India, where judges get chosen behind closed
doors, the US holds public hearings by the Senate in order to confirm
or reject a nominee. Brett Kavanaugh is now a Supreme Court Associate
Justice, and could well be Chief Justice of the United States some day,
should the present incumbent decide to retire after a while. He was
confronted by Christine Blasey Ford, an academic from California who
gave compelling testimony about an encounter that she is certain was
with the latest US Supreme Court justice. There is a case for making
public the names of each of the candidates being considered for high
judicial office ( to the High Courts or the Supreme Court), so that at
least some of the comments that follow will be from those aware of their
activities and record. This columnist has long favoured the publication
of the names of those being considered for judicial positions via the
internet, and for live streaming of all court proceedings. The Supreme
Court of India has taken a few steps in this direction, and outstanding
judges such as Chandrachud and Nariman (not to mention Chief Justice
Gogoi) may be expected to push the drive towards transparency further
and further.
In India, most decision, especially by the higher reaches of government,
get taken behind closed doors, with the public being informed only
after a fait accompli has been created. The involvement of civil society
at the early stages of several of such decisions would result in better
ones being taken and mistakes being avoided. Among the most damaging
for the Modi government is the way in which liquidity was allowed to dry
up because of the negligence of the Reserve Bank of India under a
fumbling,bumbling Governor who is among the numerous suboptimal choices
made by the present government in the field of Human Resources. In a
country of 1.27 billion people that has a vibrant civil society, most of
the jobs that are linked to political and bureaucratic patronage go to
former and present members of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS),
an inbred group with almost no accountability and where almost every
individual reaches the top of the salary scale, with a few leftovers
being taken by those from the Indian Police Service (IPS) and other
similar bureaucratic clubs.
It is only a matter of time before the “MeToo” storm hits the IAS, the
IPS and other cadres in the governance mechanism of the country. This
will happen once the fear of retribution abates after a large number of
revelations take place, thereby generating a public mood that will no
longer tolerate gender bigotry. In the case of Justice Kavanaugh,
President Trump may have won the battle but lost the war, as the way in
which the Republican Party walked over the feelings of tens of millions
of women will affect their performance in the polls that are due next
month. The Kavanaugh hearings created a new star in the Democratic
Party, Senator Kamala Harris, whose aggression clothed in poise has made
the California politician a hero to many. Her performance during the
debate on the Supreme Court nominee has given Senator Harris a high
probability of becoming a Presidential or Vice-Presidential candidate in
the 2020 elections, just as Representative Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii is
very likely to earn that spot in the 2024 Presidential contest
In a matriarchal culture, the men ensure that it is the women who make
the initial moves towards a relationship. In particular, to use one’s
power to force attentions on unwilling females is sacrilege. It is
always a mistake to seek to establish close physical relationships with
subordinates, as such a move would constitute a misuse of power for
personal gratification. The “MeToo” phenomenon is a step towards
mainstreaming the matriarchal rather than a patriarchal culture and
mindset. This would be a welcome shift in a world where women are still
suffering discrimination and disappointment simply on account of gender.

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About Prof. M. D. Nalapat

Prof. Madhav Das Nalapat (aka MD Nalapat or Monu Nalapat), holds the UNESCO Peace Chair and is Director of the Department of Geopolitics at Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India. The former Coordinating Editor of the Times of India, he writes extensively on security, policy and international affairs. Prof. Nalapat has no formal role in government, although he is said to influence policy at the highest levels. @MD_Nalapat

MD Nalapat's anthology 'Indutva' (1999)

In 1999, Har-Anand published Indutva an anthology of MD Nalapat's 1990s columns from the Times of India. The individual columns are posted here, in 1998 and 1999 of the blog archive, though the exact dates of publication are uncertain.